Nightmares
by dexterously-inept
Summary: Fear of the dark is for children. Fear for what lurks within the dark is for those with good sense. In times like these, denial was all that May could cling to, but when monsters were no longer creatures of lore, she would do anything to cope. / Rated T for eventual violence, rating is subject to change. May/Drew. Full summary inside. (ON INDEFINITE HIATUS!)
1. Chapter 1

**_Full Summary:_**

 _ **May Maple had once been named a savior. She had once been the hero that had saved Hoenn; she'd conquered legendary beings, dismantled violent extremist gangs, and brought some semblance of peace to a land so constantly turbulent. They revered her, they needed her, and so the entire nation relied on her to continue to uplift them.**_

 _ **Until she abandoned them, leaving her home with few words and never a backwards glance.**_

 _ **Years later, Hoenn has been left in ruins; pushed to the brink of destruction by civil war, rebuilt, and now once again being torn apart. People are disappearing, crime rates have begun to skyrocket, and sightings of things that can't be explained have been reported, and despite having put miles between herself and her cursed homeland, May can feel herself being pulled home yet again, this time by forces she can't quite explain. With her world expanding rapidly and a new extremist dead set on attaining her for his own twisted agendas, May won't be able to outrun her past much longer.**_

 _ **Her people are waiting for her to come to their rescue, but who protects a hero when they're the one under siege?**_

* * *

 _A/N: I had this story in my mind years ago, back when I was only fourteen. I wrote an oneshot based on what I had in mind in an old Contestshipping collection I had going (it's called Loud and Clouded, first chapter, for anyone who's interested in the old chapter)._

 _I'm going to do a rewrite of that chapter now, and later continue the story. It will feature many of the gen 3 characters, both from the anime and the games, so I hope you enjoy it as much as I'll enjoy writing it! (Also, I apologize for any errors you come across while reading, I don't have a BETA and FF keeps messing up some of my files.)_

 _DISCLAIMER: I do not own Pokémon or any of its characters!_

* * *

 **NIGHTMARES**

 **CHAPTER ONE**

 **"IN WHICH THE MONSTERS WERE REAL."**

* * *

 _There is no such thing as monsters._

As a child, this was a mantra she often uttered – frantically whispered, clutching her blankets around her shaking frame – as she would do anything to keep them at bay. For shadows crept in the corners of her mind, and in the night they emerged, torturing her, her very own fear threatening to strangle her.

Yes, to young May Maple, darkness was a daily torment. Nothing put her mind at ease, her parents simply couldn't offer her enough reassurance. For years she would huddle in the center of her bed, waiting for exhaustion to overtake her terror.

 _There is no such thing as monsters._

Eventually, like with all things, she shed her consciousness of this fear. It wasn't gone, but it had subsided. Maturity had a way of numbing the mind to its demons, and May was no exception. It simply wasn't natural for young women to cling to their childhood fears; they're often useless bouts of paranoia, senseless and inexplicable. May now often reflected upon her nights spent in fear with distaste, seeing it as a waste of energy.

Her fear of the dark was insignificant and small compared to her fears now. She knew that it had only been the beginning; it was a humbling reminder of her previous innocence. In the face of true evil, she could only cling to it. Things change, but never entirely.

 _There is no such thing as monsters._

She only wished she could still believe that was true.

* * *

"Does it really have to rain now?" May groaned, shielding her eyes from the light rain droplets at she huffed up at the grey sky.

Her Blaziken shifted uneasily, letting out a nervous sound. Her fire Pokémon wasn't exactly fond of water.

"Great. Just great," May seethed dramatically. "First I get lost, then it decides to rain. Blaziken, return."

Her Pokémon bowed its head thankfully before dissolving in the red light of its Pokéball, leaving May alone in the wilderness.

The young trainer could hardly believe her own stupidity; after training in Johto for _six years_ , one simple training trip had gone terribly wrong. With one too many wrong turns and no signal on her PokéNav, she was now stuck out in the woods with little provisions and a literal raincloud looming over her head.

Sighing heavily, May began to retrace her steps. Normally, she would just send her Altaria out to scope the area, but with the distant rumbling of thunder, May feared for the flying-Pokémon's safety. So instead she painstakingly walked back the way she came, hoping to somehow stumble out of this place unscathed.

Thunder clapped loudly around her, causing the trainer to jump and let out a squeak. Lightening illuminated the dim world around her, her surroundings appearing sinister in the strange white light.

May felt the color drain from her face, now incredibly unsettled by her isolation. Another sound rumbled in the distance, followed by the snapping of branches and crunching of leaves.

 _Footsteps,_ she realized, and sure enough she soon spotted Pokémon, emerging from the trees and tallgrasses only to flee their homes. They rushed past her, uncaring of her presence, away from the scene in which May was headed.

The girl groaned internally. That couldn't be a good sign.

"At least I'll have some great stories to bring up in therapy," she muttered sarcastically.

May paused for a moment, considering the creatures that occasionally rushed past her, and debated turning around herself. Listening to nature in a strange scenario like this couldn't possibly be a _bad thing_ , but then again, May swore that she'd seen a house a ways back. She couldn't tell if it was inhabited, but any shot at shelter was worth it at this point, the previous drizzle now turning into a rather promising downpour.

Shaking her head at her own decision, May charged off in the opposite direction of the Pokémon, desperately seeking the house.

She covered ground quickly, and soon enough she spotted the place she'd had in mind. It was a small place, and judging by the poor upkeep of the surrounding grass, and the accumulation of rotting leaves on the roof, it was abandoned. May hoped it wouldn't be too difficult to break in.

Just as she reached the paved steps to the front door, a large crash sounded nearby, followed by a human cry and a feral roar.

 _Just go inside May,_ she thought to herself. _It's none of your business. You don't have to get involved._

Another sound of pain. May whimpered slightly before turning away from her shelter and running towards the sounds of distress. She couldn't deny help to anyone suffering, not knowingly. She had to try to assist them in any way she could, despite how unwilling she was to do so.

The sounds quickly got louder, another frightening roar practically shaking the earth. May's pulse quickened, and she hurried forward, now driven by her adrenaline.

 _Do I smell something burning?_

May soon found herself in a rather large clearing, but only a small portion of it was visible. A large smoke screen clouded her vision, and the trainer had to resist a coughing fit. The creature she'd heard earlier appeared to be stumbling around within the smoke screen, unable to see.

Aside from the smoke, May quickly noticed a figure sitting crumpled on the ground smeared in blood. The young woman hurried over towards them, hoping to simply extract them from the scene rather than take her chances with whatever kept making the _horrifying_ noises from within the smoke.

She placed a hand on the person's shoulder, leaning to whisper in their ear: "I'm here to help. Are you alright?"

Frantic green eyes spun around to meet her blue ones, and May nearly stumbled back in surprise.

"May, what are you doing here?" he breathed, his tone strained. "You're g-going to get yourself killed!"

Her eyes widened in disbelief. "Drew?" she gasped, her eyes falling to his injured shoulder. Large, angry welts stood out against his pale skin, apparently caused by a burn of some kind.

Another roar resonated throughout the forest. _Think,_ she told herself sternly. _Think, we need to get out of here before that smokescreen dissipates._

Thinking quickly, she grabbed a Pokéball from her belt, releasing her Venusaur as discreetly as she could. "Let's go, Venusaur," she muttered, hoping the Pokémon would pick up her command. "Use vine whip on a tree to draw that thing away from us!"

The faithful Pokémon obliged, snapping the branch off of a tree far away from them. The branch snapped loudly, and another stupid roar suggested that her plan had worked. Heavy footsteps began to recede as the creature charged off towards the sound, still blinded by smoke.

"That should buy us some time. I found a house near here, we need to go." Drew nodded at me, apparently shocked into silence by this ordeal. He even seemed to shake slightly, although she wasn't sure if that was due to the rain or his evident fear.

It was unsettling to see Drew like this; despite their years of separation, May still found that she was accustomed to his cool exterior. Seeing Drew so exposed told her that whatever had happened, it was something to be afraid of.

He didn't say a word as she took his wrist in her hand, gently tugging him towards shelter. The silence was so very uncharacteristic of him, and even years later, she knew this would still be true. So accustomed to his sly smirks, the arrogant flip of his hair, his infuriating coolness in the face of all struggles, his raw emotion startled her. He seemed to almost cling to her, for a moment, his green eyes filled with fear and pain, and May couldn't help but stare back at him.

 _He'd thought he was going to die._ The idea chilled May to the bone. Drew was hardly even capable of admitting defeat – what could possibly have reduced him to such a state?

Drew blinked, his expression becoming more neutral as he no doubt attempted to regain his cool exterior. May shook her head slightly, returning Venusaur to its Pokéball before hurriedly walking back towards the house. The last thing either of them needed was the return of that… Beast, for lack of a better word.

"I found an abandoned house around here somewhere," May said quietly, breaking the tense silence the two had fallen into as they neared their destination. She could see the wooden paneling of the home through the trees now, the sight causing her to release a breath she hadn't known she was holding. "We should be able to stay here for the night."

Drew simply grunted in response; he hadn't spoken since she'd found him. At the most, she'd expected some goading comment from her old rival. It certainly would've been welcomed in place of his strange, frightening silence.

She wondered if he was more injured than he appeared, or perhaps simply too shaken from his encounter to speak.

May snorted. _More like he's embarrassed that I had to come to the rescue,_ she thought wryly. His pride had always been the most stubborn thing, and it had quite infuriated her as a child.

Either way, it didn't matter now. All that mattered was getting inside of the house they found themselves in front of, so that they could both dry off and recover.

As she'd suspected, the house appeared to be abandoned: it was a small home featuring a great deal of exposed wood, a faded red door, and an equally faded plate attached to it. Faintly, she could make out a name. Someone had lived here, but that no longer appeared to be true.

The fact filled her with unease, but glancing over at her partner, she knew that she didn't have time to ponder this strange discovery. He was paler than before; he looked so weak, and she knew that his wounded shoulder must be hurting him.

She tugged on the door handle, confirming her suspicions that it was locked. With an exasperated sigh, May turned to Drew.

"So, you don't happen to know how to break into a house, do you?" she asked after a few futile attempts to will the door open. The young man seemed to have vanished from his previous spot, and May spotted him in the overgrown front garden, on his hands and knees. "What -?"

He rose from the ground, turning to dangle a rusted key in front of her nose, his usual arrogant expression having returned to his face.

"Can't say that I do, but I can find a spare key," he said, jamming the key into the lock and opening the door. "Nice to know criminal activity is the first thing that comes to mind, though."

May sputtered, "Well – I – just get in the house, you ass!" He smirked at her, which the young trainer returned with a scowl and obscene gesture, before the two went inside.

May sighed in relief, the warm, stale air engulfing her, chasing away the chills brought on from the howling wind. Drew quickly shut the door behind them, locking it for good measure.

"HELLO, IS ANYBODY HOME?" May shouted, cupping her hands around her mouth. Drew grimaced, his hands coming up to shield his ears.

"I don't think anyone lives here anymore," she said when no one answered.

"Gee, what made you come to that conclusion?" Drew asked sarcastically, earning another scowl from her.

May wandered through the few rooms of the house. It was nothing more than a cottage really: it held four rooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, a bedroom, and the living room that Drew was still standing in. The bedroom consisted of one medium-sized bed, with a dresser still full of folded clothes. The home was eerie – not because of its interior, it was rather cheerfully decorated, but because of the signs of life. Everything was left in its place, nothing was packed away. Towels remained folded in the bathroom, rotten food in the pantry. The only indication that someone _didn't_ live here was the layer of dust that covered everything. Whoever had left had done so in a hurry, and that was never a very good sign.

 _Or they just never came home._

Shaking her head to dispel her paranoid thoughts, May gathered two sets of clothes, one for herself and Drew, as well as some towels. Returning to the sitting area, she found Drew where she'd left him: cold, wet, and bleeding by the door.

May set down the clothes and towels for him on a table. "You should get changed," she said, her tone softer than it had been before. He looked exhausted. "I'll try to fix your shoulder when we're both dry."

He grunted in response. May smiled slightly before turning to the bathroom to change. The clothes she'd found were a bit big on her, but they were warm and soft. Once she'd dried off and hung her old clothes to dry, she returned to the living room, one hand over her eyes.

"Are you done changing?" she albeit shouted, groping blindly around the room, not wanting to catch her old rival entirely _exposed_.

"Yeah, now open your eyes, you look like an idiot."

"Y'know, you don't have to be so _rude_ , I'm only tr-" May gasped when she spotted him, her comeback forgotten. Drew sat on the couch, wearing a pair of pants a bit too big for him and clutching his shirt in his hand, leaving the rest of him bare. His clothes sat in a sodden heap on the ground, a fact that she would've normally berated him for, but his wound stopped her.

The skin of his shoulder had seemingly been torn away, blisters rising in reaction to what must have been a burn. It covered the entirety of his right shoulder, stretching down towards the smooth skin of his lean, toned chest.

"So if you're done checking me out, you wouldn't happen to have a bandage, would you?" he asked sarcastically, although the tenseness of his jaw told her that he was in pain.

"R-right," she stammered. "Let me see what I have in my bag."

May hastily dug into her pack, which she'd left sitting on the floor by the front door. Having travelled on her own for a few years now, May had soon learned that her small fanny pack would no longer work, and she'd upgraded to a larger bag. Without Brock to mother her, she found that a pan to cook in and a sleeping bag were more important than being fashionable.

She retrieved her first aid kit, which contained all of the necessities needed to tend to her Pokémon – revives, potions, et cetera – and withdrew her burn heal, along with a roll of white bandages. She hurried back over to Drew, seating herself on the coffee table directly in front of him.

 _Since when was Drew so much taller than me?_ May wondered, now having to reach up in order to touch his shoulder. She brushed her fingers carefully around the pink edges of his wound. The bleeding had stopped, but the skin was left raw and exposed. Drew winced slightly in pain, and hands on his knees were now white-knuckled.

May took a shaky breath, her lunch threatening to make a reappearance. _Drew is in pain_ , she told herself sternly. _You can't just sit here freaking out, you need to help him!_

She picked up the burn heal slowly. "This… Might sting a little," she muttered apologetically, letting out several rounds of medicine.

The sharp intake of breath alerted her to his pain, but she was impressed by his overall composure. He remained still and rigid, the perfect patient. The years had done well to toughen her rival, it seemed, and May couldn't help but be impressed. It seemed as though they'd both grown a great deal, physically and otherwise.

May applied the medicine to the entire wound, careful not to miss any of it. Drew seemed to only grow tenser the more she applied, until suddenly he let out a sigh, the redness of the injury seeming to calm all at once. It was still frightening, but less so. It was now made up of raw, pink skin, and the inflammation was already dying down.

 _Thank Latios for modern medicine…_

Reassured by her patient's good response, May picked up her bandages, wrapping them loosely around his burn and securing them in place. "There," she said, admiring her handiwork. "I think that's all I can do for now. Feel better?"

Drew stood, pulling the shirt she'd retrieved for him over his head, covering his toned stomach. For a moment, May couldn't help but _actually_ check him out: the young boy she'd left behind in Hoenn was no more, and in his place stood a well-muscled young man. His green hair was a bit longer, and certainly more unkempt than it had been, and he now stood a great deal taller than her. They'd once been on even ground, but he was now over a head taller than her.

May couldn't decide if she liked the change, or if his physical prevalence over her angered her. They were rivals, after all – she couldn't have him showing her up in any way.

Not that her anger would change it; Drew had gone from an arrogant little boy to a man in their time apart. Although she would bet everything in her pack that he was still an arrogant man.

"Thanks, May," he said, his expression no longer pained and fearful.

Thunder boomed outside, followed by the howling of the wind, causing May to jump. She'd almost forgotten, now inside the warm and seemingly safe home, how much danger they'd both been in not too long ago. She wanted to ask him about his encounter, and judging by Drew's wary expression, he knew what she was thinking.

 _That can wait until morning_ , she thought. _He needs rest._

"There's a bed in that room," she told him, waving towards the door in question. "You can stay there, I'll just sleep on the couch."

Drew cocked an eyebrow at her, not moving from his place before her. "May, you of all people should know," he sighed, shaking his head in mock disappointment. "I may be a lot of things, but I'm not completely ungentlemanly. I'm not going to let you sleep on some dusty old couch." He ' _tsk tsk'_ ed her, his dry tone saying, ' _I can't believe you still don't know me after all these years.'_ May fought back another scowl, annoyed by his constant sarcasm.

"I'm perfectly comfortable here, Drew," she replied stubbornly, tugging a blanket from the back of the couch and throwing herself down onto it, as if to prove her point. A second later she was back on her feet, coughing and waving a hand in front of her face, a cloud of dust having flown up from her graceless flop onto the couch.

Drew snorted, his eyes dancing with mirth. "Whatever you say," he chuckled.

"Oh shut up," she snapped once the dust had settled. "What do you suggest then, since you're so smart?"

"Well, considering we're both mature adults, I'm sure we can share a bed without _ravaging_ one another, don't you think so?" Drew smirked at her before turning towards the room in question, opening the door and entering it. Begrudgingly, May followed. He knew she wouldn't turn down his idea after such teasing. He may be prideful, but her temper made her so as well.

The blankets on the bed were also dusty, as was everything else. May did her best to brush most of the dust away, careful not to send too much of it flying into the air. After a bit of fluffing, the bed did look rather inviting. May truly was exhausted, a day of wandering aimlessly through the woods having drained her.

May climbed into the bed haughtily, never pleased when Drew was _right._ "Alright," she conceded. "It's big enough. You win."

Drew slid beneath the blankets beside her. "Sorry, what was that?"

"You _win,"_ she snapped, pausing for a moment before turning to him with a devious smile. "So I guess we're even. I save you from, well, whatever that was, and you save me from a dusty couch."

Drew's amusement slid from his face, his jaw tensing. "Just go to sleep."

May laughed lightly at this. She'd missed their bickering. Of course, it was _her_ decision to explore the remainder of Johto on her own, and that had been six years ago. But she missed her companions more than she cared to admit, even her irritating rival.

Both of their heads now dry and cushioned by pillows, the atmosphere was the most relaxed it had been all day. "Drew?" she asked after a few minutes of silence.

"Hm?" he hummed quietly, his voice sounding sleepy.

"What _was_ that thing today?" Her voice was hesitant, but it was something that refused to cease in bothering her. It hadn't sounded by any Pokémon _she'd_ seen in the area, and with Professor Birch's PokéDex, May rarely found anything she was unable to identify.

The silence that followed was heavy, tension radiating from Drew.

"A nightmare," he eventually said. "I'm afraid you'll find out soon enough."

Nothing more was said by either of them, and soon enough May heard the steady breaths of her companion, indicating that he'd fallen asleep.

The young woman closed her eyes, and just as sleep drug her beneath the surface of her consciousness, one thought resonated throughout her mind:

 _There is no such thing as monsters._

* * *

 _A/N: Expect this story to get creepier. I hope you've enjoyed it so far, and please leave me a review if you have the time! I'd truly appreciate it._

 _TBC._


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Thank you to those who reviewed! There's a few POV changes between characters that haven't been properly introduced yet in this chapter – the changes are marked by page breaks._

* * *

 **NIGHTMARES**

 **CHAPTER TWO**

" **IN WHICH TIME WAS INDIFFERENT TO DARKNESS."**

* * *

Adlai couldn't pretend to know much about his line of work. In fact, when the subject of his occupation was touched upon, the boy's response was simple, and very much rehearsed:

" _It's a job that pays well, and in times like these, what more can I hope for?"_

That was what his superiors had told him to say, truth-be-told, but for Adlai, it was as good an excuse as any. He couldn't give much meaningful information even if he _wanted_ to, even without the confidentiality agreement he'd been forced to sign upon employment.

He was only told enough to make it by in his particular line of work. He was officially hired as a security guard, and on any future resumes he would list that he'd been employed under the Acheron Project's security detail. Not that he knew what he was supposed to be securing; he'd been working under the branch outside of Lavaridge for nearly three years and he'd yet been asked to defend or _secure_ anything.

Every shift was the same for Adlai: he would arrive at the compound, undergo a length security process (of which, ironically enough, he was never allowed to assist in running, and therefore knew nothing about), and then take an unsettlingly long, rickety elevator ride underground to the actual project building. The above compound was only a front, he'd learned years ago, with the main operations of the project occurring entirely underground, in a strange labyrinth of long white corridors and windowless rooms.

Adlai would always begin a shift in the bunkers, unloading his few authorized possessions onto a shelf beside his bunk. Employees, when scheduled for work, were expected to stay for several days without leaving. Adlai was never scheduled less than three days, and never more than a week, with sporadic intervals between shifts. He supposed that's why so many of his fellow "security guards" complained relentlessly about this line of work.

Adlai didn't mind the crazy, unpredictable hours though; as he told everyone, it was a job that paid well. And you didn't pass up well-paying jobs in Hoenn, not anymore. Following the civil wars and the collapse of Teams Aqua and Magma, jobs became rather scarce. Hoenn had a nasty habit of allowing political and social instability to wreak havoc on the economy.

So in a world of no work, how could Adlai complain? After all, he was paid well to simply patrol empty hallways and standby idly while scientists tampered with machines he would never understand. And he didn't _want_ to understand. Adlai was a very idle young man, and although no one could accuse him of being useless – he was a fairly capable trainer and employee – he was never willing to put forth more effort than was absolutely required.

To put it in simpler terms, Adlai was _lazy._

That being said, he was certainly not happy to begin his week-long shift that day. He was dreading it, but he sadly needed the money. It had been _weeks_ since he'd last received a mysterious phone call, always from a blocked number, informing him that he'd be expected to arrive Monday morning at 8 A.M. for screening.

And so he whined, he drug his feet, he _bitched_ to anyone who would listen, but he was still dumping his things in a bin for screening on Monday morning, 8 A.M. sharp, because he had bills to pay and he didn't have a damn choice.

By nine-o-clock he was standing in an elevator, listening to its squeaks and groans while he stared up at a flickering light bulb. It was another normal shift, and after almost three years of normal shifts, he was definitely used to the monotony.

When he stepped out at exactly nine-oh-eight, he knew something was wrong.

There was only a single elevator in the entire compound, hence its continuous state of disrepair. His superiors told him that it was for security purposes, and Adlai's hefty paycheck relied on his lazy disinterest in asking questions. That morning it struck him for the first time that this wasn't a very safe way of going about things, and had Hoenn's government not been shot to hell from the civil wars, he knew that it certainly wouldn't have been up to code.

The single elevator let out into a hallway larger than the other hallways, creatively named the Main Hallway by the staff. Usually, on Monday mornings when shift changes were common and people were eager to either get the hell out of the underground, or finally get into it, there were lines by the elevators, sending people up and down in the most efficient manner possible because there was a _single damn elevator_. There was a stairwell, sure, but those who'd attempted the climb advised others against it. It was simply too far a walk; waiting in line made more sense.

That morning, however, there was no line. There was no sound. Adlai found himself walking out into an empty corridor, one so silent that the sound of his rubber soles squeaking on the linoleum echoed throughout the space.

Upon reflection, Adlai realizes that he should have turned around and gone back up the way he'd came. But he was payed to not want to know anything, and so he would continue to do his job until someone told him to stop.

And so he put his things on his shelf in the bunker and started to patrol his assigned hallways.

He was in charge of keeping an eye on some of the observation rooms, and some of the more important ones, from what he understood. He didn't know what was in the rooms being observed – there was only one observation room that held actual a video feed of what was being "observed" and Adlai had only been allowed into that room when the feed was blank – but he knew that whatever the scientists were dealing with, it was a delicate ordeal. They would check the various machines in the two rooms Adlai was allowed into, scribbling down bits of information and muttering amongst themselves, panicking when things weren't seeming to pan out the way they'd anticipated.

Other, more seasoned security details would be assigned to the collection rooms, or the most mysterious of them all, the growth rooms. No one aside from those assigned to those areas was allowed access, and those who spoke of their assignments were immediately terminated. Therefore Adlai, who'd only been assigned to the observation rooms, had no idea what was being _observed_.

His observation hallway was also empty when he reached it, and to his surprise all three doors were unlocked. It wasn't uncommon for the machinery to not be kept under constant lock-and-key, but the video feed room was _never_ left open.

Now Adlai was truly unsettled. He glanced into the two rooms he usually spent his shifts in: both small and windowless, identical to the other two in the hallway, with grey concrete walls and white linoleum flooring, illuminated by cheap fluorescent lighting. Both were quiet, not even the usual whirring of machinery piercing the perfect silence.

He could hear his heartbeat thudding almost painfully in his ears. His mouth had gone dry. Every human instinct within him was telling him – pleading with him – to run, to never come back to this place. But trumping even this desire was his curiosity for what was contained within the third room, the video-feed observation room.

 _Don't do this, Adlai,_ he warned himself as his feet carried him towards the room.

Lazy Adlai, who never asked questions, couldn't subdue the burning desire within him. Why did he want what was in that room so badly when he'd never wanted to know about it before?

 _This isn't right, turn around!_

But then he was in the room: it was the same as the other two, as he already knew from his limited access in the past, only with a large TV screen mounted to the wall in front of a long desk lined with several generic chairs rather than complicated-looking machines. In the past, the screen had always been blank, and Adlai assumed that someone had always turned it off before leaving or allowing security to enter.

Today, though, was an exception.

The screen appeared to feature a live feed of a room apparently identical to the one he now stood in, but instead of a TV and desk furnishing the space, only a clock had been hung on the wall, placed so that it could be viewed clearly by the camera.

The camera, of course, hadn't been placed in order to observe a clock, but rather the clock was there in order to provide a sort of time-stamp. And Adlai immediately understood why such a measure needed to be taken – because certainly the digital footage would be time stamped?

It was to assure the _observers_ that the feed wasn't frozen. Had the clock not been ticking away in the background, perfectly in tune with his own watch, he too would have assumed it was broken.

Whatever was being observed stood within the room, perfectly motionless.

It was long, dark, and angular, made up of jagged lines and sharp corners, its terrifying body gleaming with some sort of slimy coating over blackened bones. It sat on its hind legs, hunched over and stabilizing itself with two scythe-like extensions that could only be arms. Its head was the largest part of it, and Adlai wondered for a moment how it supported such a thing without toppling over: large, with nothing visible through its black, sticky coating but rows and rows of sharp, stark-white teeth and impossibly large eyes looking straight into the camera.

It was staring straight at him! Although he wasn't sure how sight was possible with eyes such as those. They weren't eyes so much as they were pools of literal darkness, craters filled with an inky, almost glassy blackness. Adlai had lived through the wars without seeing something that chilled him entirely to the bone, but those eyes alone were enough to make his blood freeze.

Adlai made eye contact with it. He didn't know how, or what that _thing was_ , or where the hell everyone had run to, but he knew that the creature on the screen was staring at him specifically. It knew he was there. It could _see_ him, and Adlai didn't like it.

As if it sensed his conclusion, the creature smiled, its mouth the only thing moving now aside from the clock.

 _Tick, tick, tick._ As if nothing was wrong.

The two must have stood like that, in their strange standstill, for several silent minutes, with nothing but the clock ticking and the creature staring and Adlai's breath catching. Nothing in Adlai's three years of employment had prepared him for this.

He'd had his fair share of private theories for what the Acheron Project entailed. He'd always assumed that they were a part of the now-illegal Pokémon splicing business that Team Rocket had introduced in other regions years ago. Splicing was a disaster that left its test subjects horribly disabled and useless, hence it's abandonment by most of the world, but some die-hard scientists insisted that it would be the next frontier in terms of battling. That the practice only needed some adjustments.

No, this thing wasn't a splice. He could only categorize what he saw under the occult.

Adlai suddenly wanted out – _now_. He stumbled backwards, turning around for a split second to glance into the still-empty corridor behind him, before returning his gaze to the monitor.

"Oh – _SHIT!_ " Adlai exclaimed, for the creature had apparently moved in that short amount of time, its face now positioned directly in front of the camera, those black pooling eyes staring at him, still unblinking.

 _Tick, tick, tick._

And then it was screaming. The sound erupted all around him; it could be heard over the intercom system, echoing down hallways, even pouring from his own imagination. Adlai could only stumble away from the forbidden room, desperately trying to reach the only elevator while blood trickled from his ears.

He reached the lift, the compound still mysteriously empty, and began punching the button beside it. He waited several agonizing minutes, the deafening roar of the demonic creature only seeming to grow in volume as Adlai joined in, his own cries that of fear and pain.

The sound was making a strange, unnatural sort of pressure grow within his skull, and Adlai was sobbing, pounding on the door of the elevator that he knew would never reach him.

Shaking, he drug himself towards the stairs. They were his last hope – he _wouldn't_ die in a place like this, he wouldn't stand idly by while a monster toyed with him.

 _God, anyone, please help me,_ he silently prayed, his mind struggling to form coherent thought in spite of the screaming.

 _HELP ME!_

Desperately, Adlai began to climb.

* * *

"We found him in the woods, sir."

"And who is that?"

"The boy, Subject F, Adlai Schuller. He was discovered this previous Wednesday at ten-oh-six A.M. in the woods surrounding the Acheron Lavaridge extension."

"Good, good. Though he shouldn't have been allowed out in the first place. The state of his condition?"

"Stable, sir. The first stable case since Subject C. He's been asleep for a while now, but I've been informed that when he speaks in his sleep, it's in his own tongue. Subject E lost his ability to communicate with us, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. He's expected to wake soon."

"Yes, good, very good… And have you any luck tracking down Subject G? The extraction is slated for completion rather soon."

"Subject G: May Maple. She was last spotted in an uncharted area outside of Ecruteak City. Our attempts at capture thus far have been apparently thwarted by an unknown party."

"I would like your team dispatched immediately. Whatever it takes, I need May Maple brought to me _alive_. Subject G will be the most promising, if my research is correct."

"Of course, Professor, sir. Right away."

* * *

May could count the amount of nightmares she's had in her life on one hand; there were only three in all of her twenty-four years of life. This wasn't counting the odd, frustrating dreams that left one feeling weary the following morning, but rather the _true_ nightmares, the ones that ripped her from sleep and left her screaming. The types of the dreams she'd be hard-pressed to forget.

Her first had been when she was very young, hardly old enough to form memory. Her grandmother had just died. She didn't recall much about the woman, so the loss wasn't particularly felt by young May Maple. However, the funeral greatly impacted her: her parents were busy during the service, making it easy for the child to slip away and explore her unfamiliar surroundings. By the time everyone realized that she'd gone missing and located her, May was standing on a chair in a separate room, peering down into the open casket that contained her grandmother.

Seeing her first dead body shook her, although she couldn't quite say why; as mentioned, the death didn't make her very sad, but the cold sensation that swept through her when her tiny hands clasped the casket for balance filled her with a terror she couldn't quite understand. That night she dreamt about being frozen from the inside out, slowly, while her dead grandmother called out to her:

" _I can see you, why won't you help me? Please help me!"_

But May couldn't move, her very blood turning to ice. She woke screaming that night, her face wet with tears.

The second was after the initial fall of Team Aqua and Team Magma. Her nightmare consisted of the two great beasts she and her allies had been faced with, only instead of defeating the two terroristic groups, May had failed. This nightmare made more sense than her other one had, and she calmed quickly once her fogged mind adjusted to her surroundings.

May had witnessed a great deal of bloodshed, loss, and pain throughout Hoenn during her travels - there was a time when Teams Aqua and Magma slaughtered people to further their own agendas – and her third nightmare reflected this. Shortly after returning to her home in Littleroot for a brief reprieve between adventures, May found herself trapped in a strange dream in which thousands of strangers stood around her, crying out and reaching towards her, but unable to ever get close enough to touch her. May hunched in the center of the strange circle crying, begging them to leave her alone, but they continued pleading with her. She couldn't understand what they were saying. It was as though they were speaking a language she didn't recognize. That nightmare ended with her alone, clutching her pillow to her chest as she was wracked with silent sobs.

It had been years since her sleep had been interrupted by such dreams.

Until that night, tucked into a dusty bed beside her old rival. Her fourth nightmare made her consider redefining the term.

This time, May was surrounded by an inky, unnatural darkness. The air was perfectly still, perfectly silent, with no light able to pierce the undisturbed void. May found herself growing increasingly claustrophobic, her breathing becoming shallower and harsher. The sounds of her fear seemed to echo throughout the space, and despite the apparent measures taken to numb her senses, May could still sense that she wasn't alone.

"Who's there?" she asked, her voice cracking despite her attempt to sound brave. She had this strange urge to hide her weakness, but she soon pushed this silly notion from her mind: she was at a complete disadvantage here, and whatever lurked within the darkness could certainly maneuver it better than she could.

A deep sound resonated throughout the space. It was a wet noise, deep and guttural, rumbling like some sort of sick chuckle. There was something else, too: a clatter, like two things tapping and grinding together, could be heard while the creature apparently moved.

"Show yourself, you damn coward!" May shouted at it, unwilling tears springing to her eyes.

For a moment, the world went silent again, and then it was behind her. Its breath was hot and humid and reeking of decay.

"I… See… You…" it gurgled in her ear between heavy, stinking breaths, its voice a cross between that of a man and beast.

And then May was screaming, clutching her hands over her ears and crumbling to the ground while the creature began to laugh again. She'd never felt a fear so intense, and again she was reminded of her first nightmare; the cold sensation was beginning to creep over her again, feeling entirely too real and familiar. Something began to glow, standing out against the absolute blackness that surrounded it, and May struggled to focus on it in her terror.

The ground opened up, sending her spiraling into a blackened abys while the voice echoed all around her. She reached as she fell: up and up to the stars. There were only two, and May desperately wanted to reach them. The stars here were green.

 _No, not stars_. A set of emerald eyes.

Someone else was screaming with her too now, a masculine echo to her own sounds. She could hear it faintly, as if it came from the back of her very own mind:

"HELP ME!"

* * *

She woke up with a gasp, the cold feeling still lingering in her shaking limbs and a bit of sweat trickling from her brow.

Rain still pounded against the windows of the abandoned house when she woke, casting a grey shadow over the space. The bedroom door was now closed, May noticed, although she'd left it open the previous night. A slight red glow ebbed into the room from beneath the door, immediately causing May to panic slightly. The space on the bed beside her, once occupied by Drew, now sat empty, the only indication that he'd been there at all being a slightly rumpled spot on the sheets.

The stormy grey skies provided her with little evidence as to what time of day it was, but she doubted that she would be able to achieve sleep again after the nightmare she'd just had. And so her weary feet hit the floor soundlessly and carried her out the door and into the living room area.

In the room, a fire crackled happily in a small hearth, her Blaziken leaning up against a wall beside it, purring happily as it dozed. May frowned, not remembering having released any of her Pokémon since her training session the day before. The remainder of the team she'd chosen to take with her to Johto – Altaria and Venusaur – snoozed in lazy heaps around the room, amongst a few Pokémon she didn't recognize. It seemed that Drew had taken the liberty of releasing her Pokémon and feeding them, something May would have been grateful for, had her mood not been so foul.

 _Where was the green haired bastard anyways?_ May thought grumpily, ready to unleash her nightmare-induced anger and fear onto him. She needed an outlet, and a good argument always proved effective.

As if on cue, the front door swung open. May squeaked in surprise, flinching as a gust of wet air entered the room.

"Sorry about that," Drew said, closing the door behind him and shutting out the howling winds before sitting down on the couch. May winced at how (unapologetically) soaked he was.

May stomped over to him, standing in between the green haired trainer and the hearth with her hands over her hips. If she hadn't been feeling so humorless, she may have laughed at how much she looked like her mother.

"Why were you outside?" she snapped.

"I went for a walk," he answered calmly, flashing an innocent smile that nearly sent her into a rage.

"Gee, how did I not figure that out on my own?" she asked with mock confusion, throwing herself down onto the couch beside him. "It's perfectly normal to go on long walks in the rain. Alone. In an unfamiliar area. That you were also recently attacked in."

"Ha ha, very funny," he said, shifting slightly to allow her more room to sit. "Didn't we wake up in a mood?"

May just sighed heavily, choosing not to respond. She didn't know why she was so angry at him for going outside. She knew she was being petty and she didn't care, and while she could blame it on the nightmare, she had a feeling she was more annoyed that she'd woken up _alone_ after her nightmare.

And now there was no reasonable way for her to talk about it, too! Without her post-nightmare hysteria, how could she explain the terribly real fear she'd felt throughout it without sounding and feeling like an idiot? Or how this cold feeling would return to her when she was afraid, or experienced these types of dreams, and that it scared the hell out of her?

How could she tell Drew – who she hadn't spoken to in years, who she'd basically _abandoned_ in Hoenn after suddenly deciding to venture off on her own – that she'd been hearing voices?

No, not voices; a voice.

" _HELP ME!"_

She'd never heard that voice before, and since she'd woken up she hadn't been able to shake the memory of it. It had sounded so very _real_. Like she had accidentally listened in on someone's personal prayer.

"May, seriously, is everything alright?"

May snapped out of her own thoughts, blinking a few times at the young man beside her. "Oh, yes," she said quietly. "I'm fine. Just tired, that's all."

She was far from fine – she was thoroughly shaken, and nervous. The dream had left her with a strange sense of foreboding that refused to go away. But she was tired, at least that much was the truth; she felt as though she'd only gotten a few hours' sleep, and judging by the bags beneath Drew's eyes, she may be correct in that assumption.

"You should go back to sleep then. We won't have much luck trying to find our way out of this place in the rain, we'll have to wait it out."

Part of her was very relieved that Drew intended to find their way out of the woods together. The other, very paranoid, part of her was afraid he'd think things were going to go back to the way they were in Hoenn. She'd left for a reason, as her consciousness then reminded her. The days of creating dazzling spectacles for competitions had long since ended, but May remembered that these were the days that Drew had clung to throughout their darker times. Although for May, they were almost mockingly serene. The civil wars that followed those happy days changed her from what she once was. In comparison to what she'd later been forced to endure, it almost seemed too cruel to reflect on her golden childhood.

Of course May knew, deep down, that Drew's comment had been harmless and that she was over thinking things. Of course they would reach the next town together, but that meant nothing more. War had made May paranoid, and she often had to remind herself that this twisted way of thinking wasn't needed anymore. Not everyone had an ulterior motive. She too often nowadays got caught up in her own mind.

"Is your shoulder bothering you?" May asked, desperate to distract herself from her own thoughts.

Drew frowned, glancing down at his shoulder as if he was just remembering that he was injured, and shook his head.

May didn't believe him for a second. "Then why aren't you sleeping?"

"Why aren't you?"

"Drew – I asked you first."

"Don't ask questions you aren't prepared to answer yourself."

Oh, she hated when he was right.

"I had a nightmare. Your turn."

May's Blaziken grumbled from its spot near the hearth, casting May its equivalent of a scowl. _'Sorry,'_ May mouthed at her Pokémon before turning back towards Drew.

"You had a nightmare?" he said in a quieter, concerned-sounding voice.

May's eyes drifted to an indistinct spot above Drew's right shoulder, the sudden intensity of his gaze making her uncomfortable. "Yeah, what about you?"

"It was nothing, the rain woke me up," Drew said hurriedly, clearly no longer amused by that conversation. "What happened in your nightmare?"

"Why are you so interested?"

Drew sighed. "May… Please?"

May huffed. He was stubborn, but she was too – sometimes even more so than him. She felt a bit awkward recounting the nightmare to him, despite her desire to talk about it with _someone_ , but she launched into her clumsy retelling nonetheless. Because he'd said _please_.

He rarely begged for anything, and when he did it always caught May so off guard that she'd usually just cave and give him what he wanted, if only to discover why he wanted it so badly in the first place.

When she was finished, he just looked at her for a moment, as if shocked by something.

"I… May, we need to go to Ecruteak City," he said after a lengthy silence. "To speak to the Sages at Bell Tower."

"Drew, it's just a nightmare, don't take things so seriously," May said, casting him an odd look. Sages were literal hubs of spiritual wisdom and knowledge, and those found at Bell Tower were the most incredible of them all. To even gain audience with them now was nearly unheard of; May couldn't imagine that they'd speak about her _nightmare_ with them.

Drew pushed some of the hair back from his face, a habit he apparently hadn't grown out of. Now, however, he did so in a much more frustrated manner, as opposed to his previous flamboyance. It did more to ruffle his longer-and-less-kempt mane than it did to fix it.

May liked this habit a lot more than his previous one, if she were being honest.

"I don't think that was a regular nightmare," he told her seriously. "May, _please_ just trust me. The worst they can do is refuse to see us."

Another _please._ She knew he was keeping information from her, but if he was already using his _pleases_ rather than simply telling the truth, May had to believe that he had a good reason for keeping things from her.

After all, May kept her own fair share of secrets now.

"Okay. Okay, I trust you," she said in a weary voice as she massaged her eyes with the heels of her hands. "We'll go to Ecruteak City."

* * *

Adlai couldn't wake up for a long time after the scientists found him.

He had still been in his security guard uniform, slumped up against the trunk of a tree while he muttered incoherently, either from exhaustion or shock. Or the damage of the shrieking that had come both from him and the demon he'd seen in the observation room.

Adlai had strange dreams while he slept in the care of the scientists; they were muddled and confused, showing him people he didn't think he knew and places he didn't think he'd ever seen. It was like peering into box full of black water and watching pictures surface occasionally, only these pictures were from the lives of other people. People he'd never met before.

When he finally did wake up, he didn't feel right.

" _Adlai? Adlai, I'm a doctor. If you can hear me try to move one of your arms."_

He lifted an arm.

" _Good, do you remember who you are?_ "

He was Adlai Schuller. He lifted the same arm.

" _Adlai, can you open your eyes?"_

He obeyed soundlessly, not bothering to blink as his eyes adjusted to the harsh white lights around him. He was in a grey concrete room, white linoleum on the floors. He couldn't see a door, but he assumed that it would be hidden and locked. A single clock hung on the wall.

 _Tick, tick, tick._

He turned his head slowly towards the doctor who'd been speaking to him. She was small, blonde, with a trembling clipboard in her hand. She looked frightened, Adlai realized, and he wondered briefly about what could make her appear to be so afraid.

 _Tick, tick, tick._

Adlai felt so strange. He just wanted that clock to stop ticking, and for that doctor to stop looking at him like that. He sat up and stood in one fluid motion. Whatever had happened to him had left him feeling much more graceful than he ever had before.

The little doctor backed up against a wall. Adlai, being a grown man, towered over the little woman. Her chest began to heave.

 _Tick, tick, THUD._

He could hear her pulse now. Was that normal – hearing another person's heartbeat? He couldn't remember.

But now he was looking at her pulse points: her neck, slender and warm, and her wrists, pounding with blue blood. He remembered that when he was a young boy, his mother would tell him that blood was blue in the body, and that it only turned red when air hit it. He was curious as to if that were true or not. Perhaps, if he opened her quick enough, he would catch a glimpse of blue.

He had his answer before the woman could even scream: the grey walls were sprayed with red, the white floors with red, even the clock had flecks of red on it.

But no blue.

 _Tick, tick, tick._

What a stupid theory.

* * *

 _After a bit of a delay, here's chapter two!_

 _The back story with the whole Team Aqua/Team Magma conflict will be filled in as we go, as will a lot of the other things mentioned. This story will feature a more violent, harsh environment, therefore the previous conflicts will have had a much less… PG backstory._

 _Again, I apologize for any errors you may find when reading. I do not have a BETA and I definitely don't have impeccable spelling/grammar._

 _I hope you've enjoyed this chapter, and please take the time to leave a review if you can._

 _TBC._


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